Sexual health services are reaching a “tipping point” in the wake of government funding cuts, local councils have warned.

The Local Government Association (LGA) says visits to clinics have soared by 25% over the last five years, while council budgets to provide them have been cut by almost 10%.

The LGA has warned that patients could be facing delays for appointments and results and argued funding cuts could “impact on councils’ ability to meet demand and respond to unforeseen outbreaks”.

Latest Public Health England figures show there were 114,565 attendances at sexual health clinics in the North East in 2016, of which almost two thirds were female - 72,140.

A sexual health clinic treatment room

This was the lowest overall number since 2012 - down from almost 121,000 in 2015 and just over 117,000 in 2014.

But councils have said that it will be “extremely challenging” to maintain services at the present level with cuts to public health budgets.

Last year we reported how local authorities in the North East will have more than £4m less to support their local health care responsibilities, which includes sexual health services as well as stop-smoking services and schemes to reduce obesity.

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Public health funding across the five Tyne and Wear boroughs was set to be reduced to £81 per person next year, from £84 per person in 2016/17, according to data from the Department of Health.

Newcastle alone is losing £610,000 as public health grant allocations to the borough drop to £81 per person for 2017/18 from £86 per person for 2016/17 - a decrease of 5.81%.

The LGA says that across the country the government’s cuts to councils’ public health budgets amounts to £531 million – a reduction of nearly 10 per cent.

Coun Izzi Seccombe, chairman of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said: “While it is encouraging that more and more people are taking their own and their partners’ sexual health seriously, we are concerned that this increase in demand is creating capacity and resource issues for councils.